Impacts of Stress

Stress is a serious issue affecting most people in their daily lives around the world, many people still aren't aware of it's impact on their health and general well being. Even though this phenomenon can be crippling, successfully managing stress can bring about drastic improvements in one's life. While experiencing stress can seem to be a normal part of life because stress is crucial for our survival; there indeed is a need for a stress response within our body to help us respond and guide us through those ever seemingly challenging aspects of life.

All the symptoms of stress, such as a rapid heart beat or fast breathing, are mechanisms that our body uses to those stressful moments. As an individual becomes stressed, the brain tells the kidney to release adrenaline and cortisol into the body, bringing about an increased heart rate and breathing rate while the blood vessels in our muscles begins to fill with blood, which takes away blood from our digestion. During a stressful response, the liver releases glucose into the bloodstream to help feed the brain and muscles in response to the stressful event.

Moreso, being stressed affects our sleep, as the body thinks you're in a stressful situation and it has to prepare for it. Meaning one can find a good night sleep very difficult as the mind might start to race. In a situation whereby an individual is suffering from stress more chronically, this can raise the blood sugar until it reaches a point where the body will not be able to keep up as high blood sugar is a risk factor for insulin resistance, prediabetes and diabetes.

What's more, the effects that being stressed can have on the body, most times go hand in hand; the increased risk of cardiovascular disease in people with diabetes might be in someway be due to being stressed. While extended stress can lead to weakened immunity, as cortisol suppresses the immune system.

Stress can also affect your eating habits and also weight. As some people develop the habit of eating whenever they are under stress, of which it could result in the over-consumption of foods high in calories, sugar and fat. These along with the increase in blood sugar arriving from stress can bring about weight gain. Albeit weight loss might also occur is some circumstances as some people also adopt the trait of under eating when they are stressed.

Stress of course takes a toll on the mental health as these can lead to anxiety, depression, substance use problems, social withdrawal etc.

With stress it's often out of our control as we cannot foresee what challenges or situations lie ahead of us.

Finally, in reducing stress and staying healthy, one should adopt some of these habits such as changing lifestyles by exercising regularly and proper nutrition, remove and reduce the identified causes of stress, implementing mindfulness and ultimately meditations.